SAND SPRINGS — Stadiums across Oklahoma thumped and roared through the opening round of the playoffs last Friday. Whistles shrieked, pads collided and seasons ended under the harsh indifference of LED lights. But Sand Springs did something different — it waited.
No bruises. No taped ankles. No energy-sapping fourth quarters.
Just the quiet hum of preparation. While most of 6A-II fought for survival, the Sandites and their fans got a week off — they earned it by claiming the 6A-II-2 district title — and in a sport where the calendar offers few favors, that bye week felt like a gift wrapped in eight straight wins.
And now, finally, the lights come on for the Sandites.
Friday night, Memorial Stadium will have a collegiate atmosphere when Sand Springs hosts one of those games that seem to arrive with a low, steady cadence — a matchup heavy with meaning — everything built since September has pointed to this moment.
The Sand Springs Sandites, 8–2, welcome another eight-win bruiser, the Piedmont Wildcats, in an OSSAA quarterfinal that will test both sides.
Sandite math
For Sand Springs, the numbers read like a pre-season promise kept: 397 points scored. Just 154 allowed. Thirty-nine-pointseven per game on offense, 15.4 on defense. An average margin of plus-24.3. That’s not just winning — that’s winning with authority.
And to think, this machine began its season with a wobbly wheel. A 56-7 beating from Bixby — it was Bixby though. A 45-17 stumble at Owasso. Two early body punches that might have buckled a lesser team.
Something happened after that second loss — something subtle, something hard to quantify but easy to feel. The Sandites didn’t splinter. They coalesced, they steeled — blanking Bishop Kelley 35-0. They hung 51-0 on the Bartlesville jumbotron and turned 70 points loose on Capitol Hill. They rolled through Ponca City, Putnam City West, Muskogee, Putnam City North and finally, cross-river rivalry Sapulpa, completing a perfect 7-0 district run as if those first two weeks had simply been the superhero’s origin story.
It wasn’t magic. It was maturity.
Sandite Offense
A steady hand at the center of it all is senior quarterback Easton Webb — completing 66.7 percent of his passes, carrying a 110.8 QB rating, firing 22 touchdowns through the air and adding four more with his legs. A quarterback who doesn’t panic, who doesn’t press, and seems to finally understand the quiet responsibility of being the calmest person in the stadium.
His favorite spark? Junior receiver Dominic Forbes — 113.5 receiving yards per game, 10 receiving touchdowns, 12 TDs total. The kind of player who forces defensive backs into bailout coverage.
The kind who can change a drive — or a night — in a single step — especially when he’s got that step on a corner.
But the heartbeat of this offense isn’t just paced by Webb / Forbes chemistry. It’s senior running back Chaves Williams grinding out hard yards and eight rushing touchdowns so far this season. It’s junior Tristan Birmingham — a receiver on the roster, a running back in all practical purposes, and a problem for defensive coordinators all season — slicing out 55 rushing yards per game.
And while the offense gets the points, the defense takes bows of its own.
Sandite Defense
Linebacker Brock O’Dell, 10.5 tackles per game. Inside linebacker Emory Smittick, 9.0. Up front, Grady Harris with 7.5 sacks this season; Waylon Jeffers with seven more; and O’Dell contributing four from the second level. Behind these guys, a secondary that behaves like a pack of hounds on the scent — Tre Pope with four interceptions, Alex Dudley with three, Gage Gunn with two, plus fumble recoveries by Junior Ballard and Caden Warwick. At least 14 takeaways, none of them accidental.
That’s not reaction, that’s anticipation.
On the visitor’s sidelines:
Sharing the bracket block this week is Piedmont — kind of a reflection in the glass — kind of not — a team built differently but winning just as well.
Eight W’s; a 5-2 district record; a 53-28 playoff win over Bartlesville last week. And most notably: a 1714 win over Stillwater that raised eyebrows from Muskogee to Enid.
Piedmont, with one more game under their belt, brings 462 points of offense — 42.0 per game — and a defense surrendering just 14.9 points, nearly identical to Sand Springs’. Their scoring margin of plus-27.1 barely tops the Sandites’.
As far as Friday’s game is concerned, they are not an underdog, nor are they impressed by reputations. They are a problem.
Make a wish
Piedmont’s identity is simple, stubborn, timeless — the wishbone — retro and quaint yes, but reborn and remastered. Three runners, each displaying a different style of menace, each with options. Brooks Backus with 95.9 rushing yards per game. Knoxtyn Rallo with 75.1. Nathan Crooks with 64.0. Rallo has crossed the goal line 13 times, Backus eight, quarterback Jordin Holman eight more.
Holman throws sparingly but efficiently — a 122.9 quarterback rating — and when the Wildcats decide to take a shot, they do it with the kind of misdirection that only three backs and a backfield full of deception can provide.
Through the air, Ethan Burns and Clayton Harrington have combined for three receiving touchdowns, with Harrington even tossing one — enough spice to keep 6A-II honest.
Klinck’s take
Sandite Head coach Bobby Klinck knows exactly what’s coming to his house Friday.
“Piedmont runs the wishbone offense and do a really good job with it,” he said. “We need to keep them behind the sticks and be sound with doing our jobs. Defensively, they are an even front. They run a defense very similar to ours. We need to operate at a high level offensively and overall be the more physical team to have success.”
Of course he’s got plans within plans that he’s not going to divulge on these pages, so he didn’t have a lot to say and he stayed away from glossy talk.
Games like this don’t need hyperbole. They carry their own weight.
For Sand Springs, it’s O’Dell and Smittick reading keys in the split-second before the handoff. It’s Harris and Jeffers winning the battle that happens six inches above the turf. It’s Pope and Dudley refusing to bite on that one playaction shot that every wishbone coordinator puts in his pocket for the playoffs.
For Piedmont, it’s finding a way to smother Forbes, keep Birmingham from skirting the edge, and make Webb win with patience rather than precision.
This is old-school football with new-school stakes — leverage and toughness, angles and assignment — discipline — its a game where two or three yards are going to matter at the end of the day. It’s a game where hitting a filled gap instead of rolling into the open one can write a sad ending.
And when the lights fade and the Jumbotron freezes on the final talley, the Sandites will walk out having already answered every question about resilience, identity and growth.
The only question left is whether a season built on eight straight wins, honed by two early lessons, forged through a tough district gauntlet and rewarded with a week of rest… can turn into something more.
Playoff brackets come and go, players graduate, banners go up, bleachers empty, echoes fade. The blessed towns get a handful of nights to tack onto the ends of their regular seasons where they can make memories — nights when the stakes feel higher, the lights burn brighter, and a team’s interwoven success becomes a story worth telling.
Friday isn’t just a quarterfinal game. It’s a big part of the entire story, it’s the part where the superheroes gather for the showdown.
Come encourage the Sandites — be part of the story.
They are standing at the edge of something that matters.